Black fine line tattoo on the lower leg above a sandal strap, showing a feathered wing on a wand with a triangle and circle symbol, small stars and the script words It's real for us.

Winged wand and script on the lower leg

Fine line · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a feathered wing above a wand-like shaft with ornate rings, a triangle enclosing a circle beside it, and two small star marks. Handwritten script reading It's real for us sits below the design. The linework is single-tone black and grey with light sketchy shading, shown in a sunlit outdoor photo with a wooden jetty behind.

Fine line Calf Wing Wand Triangle Circle Star Script Quote

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hush now, the lot of you, and pass that jug down before Aunt Morwen starts counting the spoons. I have told this tale at every wedding in this valley since my knees gave out, and I will tell it once more, because the bride's grandmother asked me particularly.

Keep reading

Long ago, in a workshop above the mill race at Pell Ford, a wandmaker named Idris Coyle worked ash and yew with a hooked knife. He had one rule: no wand left his bench until it had been given a feather. Not any feather. It had to be a wing-feather from the grey swifts that nested under the mill eaves, plucked only after the birds had circled the church spire three times at dusk. He carved the shaft with three rings so a nervous hand would have something to hold, and he cut a triangle and a circle into the butt, the old mark of his trade, which he said meant a door and the way through it.

His apprentice, Nell Ashdown, wanted a wand of her own. Idris said no. She made one anyway from a broken oar, fixed a swift's feather to it with pitch and linen thread, and hid it under the loft boards. That autumn the flood came down the valley and the mill went under. Nell walked the drowned lane alone at night with that oar in both hands, and the feather lifted in the wind and went ahead of her like a lantern, with two stars pricked in the dark behind it. Idris found her on the chapel steps, soaked to the bone, and he said nothing clever. He only painted six words on the lintel of his shop: it's real for us.

So raise your glasses to the pair of them, and to every wand that was ever made from something broken. The swifts have gone quiet under the eaves, which means they are asleep, which means you should be too, after one more glass.